In recent years, widespread broadband Internet connections and wireless network and improved techniques, such as the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance), for connection compatibility between digital consumer electronic devices allowed connection and communication between digital consumer electrical appliances other than PCs. New services have appeared where consumer electrical appliances, such as TVs and digital versatile disk (DVD) recorders or mobile phones and DVD recorders, are liked to allow remote recording setting, remote viewing, and so on. For example, new services have become available with which users play and view or download content such as videos and pictures in a server device from which a remote client device obtains a graphical user interface (GUI) for controlling the server device. However, there are sufficiently possible cases where connection of digital consumer electrical appliances is made between a new device and an old device, resulting in a function of the new device being unavailable from the old device. The server device, for example, may depict a picture with a special effect, but the client device may not. For video, the client device may perform a normal playback but not a double-speed playback.
There are known conventional techniques for such cases. Patent Reference 1 shows an exemplary one of the techniques. According to Patent Reference 1, when a server device receives, from the client device on which a browser is launched requests, a request for a GUI by HTTP communication, a server device obtains display capabilities of the client device and provides it with content depending on the capabilities. In order for the server device to obtain the display capabilities of the client device, a client smart agent of the server device analyzes header information of an HTTP request from the client device. In the case where the client smart agent has failed in analyzing header information, the server device sends the client smart agent to the client device so as to obtain information on the display capabilities recorded in an operation system or a BIOS. The server device customizes GUI content depending on the obtained display capabilities of the client device and provides the client device with the customized GUI content.